Now that I had control of my mother’s property and not being interested in keeping it for myself, rather wanting it done, gone, and out of our lives I proceeded to meet with an auctioneer to move the house quickly. This was about 2 months before the great housing crash. My mother’s home was not worth very much and she had a large 2nd mortgage on the house which the Great Thor went through tremendous efforts to convince everyone was taken to support my husband’s gambling habits overlooking the fact that 1.) My mother would take anyone to the casino that would take her, including the Great Thor, his girlfriends, my younger sibling, his wife, myself, my friends, and what few elderly ladies she knew that could still drive. 2.) My mother, prior to the opening of the Delaware Casino would hop on a bus every month to go to Atlantic City with someone or alone, she was always determined to gamble. 3.) My mother had not been able to leave her house for the last 2 years of her life unless to go to the doctor so she was no longer able to gamble. 4.) She frequently paid my younger brother’s mortgage and electric bill. And 5.) Thor was experiencing a change of live and had quit his job of over 30 years to become a handyman. His income was minimal and often not consistent. He had a home and an investment property which he had huge mortgages on and would not rent out his property because he did not trust anyone to keep it up. The electric bill on his investment property was being paid for by my mother. Often his mortgages were being paid for by my mother….. now keeping this in mind all he would say is that the second mortgage was for my husband’s gambling problem… “THE LADY DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH, ME THINKS”!

We put the house up for auction and when the day arrived to sell the home and we opened the doors to the public the auctioneers approached me with anger. It seemed that the Great Thor had removed all the appliances from the home, further stealing from his brothers. They told me that they might not get as much as they anticipated because of the appliances not being there and worse yet they might have people claiming that their advertisements noting all the appliances that were to come with house might be considered inaccurate to falsely draw people to the sale. We proceed with the auction. We anticipated based on the property values at the time we might get $90K to $100K for the house but not much more. You can imagine our surprise when the house sold for approximately $134K (these figures aren’t accurate but close… its been many years since I thought about this and frankly do not feel like pulling all the records just to make sure I right on the money). Whatever the exact amount the auctioneers and my Realtor sister-in-law all exclaimed how lucky we were to pull in that kind of money because the house was not worth it and even luckier, 2 months later the world’s economy came tumbling to its knees and had we waited the house would have been worth another 25% to 50% less.

So we settled. The house was gone and I met with our lawyer. You can’t imagine my surprise when it turned out that the Great Thor, Mein Wundervoller Bruder had hired a lawyer to get even more money from his siblings. He claimed all these expenses including wanting to be paid for the water heater that he caused to burst by turning off the heat to save money. He neglected the fact that the estate could have charged him rent for the entire year he “owned” the house in his attempt to steal it from his siblings. He also wanted his siblings to reimburse him for ALL the funeral expenses that he incurred that had been paid for by my mother’s insurance policy. There were multiple other claims as well. I asked the attorney about the appliances he he told me that I could have my brother arrested for stealing the appliances however I did not want that to happen. As much as I disliked my brother I did not want to see him have to go through yet another trial in his life. He was a desperate man that had lost his meal ticket and quite frankly was doing what ever he could to pad his pockets a bit longer.

So I agreed to all of my brother’s claims because the lawyer told me that it was simply ridiculous to drag this out and what little money would be distributed would be drained in pursing any legal action to fight some of his claims and it turned out that he was entitled to repayment for the insurance… but funny that no one was going to repay me for the graves I gave my parents. Anyway the Great Thor ended up with approximately 50% of the estate that was left after paying my mother’s expenses and his three siblings had to split the remaining 50%.

After this I would see my brother driving the streets in a beat-up old motor-home on occasion, one I’m sure he purchased with my mother’s money (or I should say my biological father’s money… Thor’s step-father). Later I heard that he treated my Aunt from Georgia to a trip to Germany where I’m sure all the Germans huddled around regaling in tails of his martyrdom at the hands of his evil American siblings. What galls me the most is that the German’s idolize the man because of his purer blood and take his word as gospel when I know the truth. My husband knows the truth. My younger sibling knows the truth. His wife knows the truth. My niece and nephew know the truth. But yet the Germans have tried and convicted the American side of the family as abusive, bloodsucking leaches that caused my mother nothing but misery while they feast with the enemy.

I still have the clock my mother gave me and when I look at it I remember the words she told me that Thor spoke to her for having given it to me. That she was wrong in giving it to me because it should have “STAYED IN THE FAMILY”. Well to me Thor is no longer family. I never want to see him again and hope he dies a lonely and miserable old man. I have my friends and whats left of my family here and they are all that I need.

I took a long time finishing this story because I lost interest however I knew that it needed to be finished. With every posting I do about my parents I do not mean to speak ill of them, I am telling the truth. I loved my mother and father and still dream of them to this day nearly a decade since my mother’s passing and more that a decade since my father passed yet my stories are met with ire and disdain by my German relatives, accusing me of disrespecting my parents when in fact they are really saying I have no right to speak of my wonderful mother and father and share my memories… to them I should instead remember the lies and accusations as recounted to them by “Mein Wundervoller Bruder”.